


Gluttonous for Atonement.

by stacksontrash



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 13:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stacksontrash/pseuds/stacksontrash
Summary: { Only the man who'd made a home out of bare bones and three square meals a day didn't have any discernible chinks in his armor. His heart wasn't soft, and trusting, and so simple to infest like Scott's had been. He wasn't prone to fits of high tension, and didn't bark when Theo tried so hard to bite. }





	Gluttonous for Atonement.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sleep deprived. Sorry.

The disjointed way in which these four walls had begun to present themselves in the past few days was a comfort in itself. Having freewheeled through an aftermath which was never intended, an orderly kind of routine punctuated by instances of deliberate, deserved violence felt eerily close to comfortable. At first he'd clawed at the door, never lowering himself to pleading for the freedom provided by an open road and an empty passenger seat, but incessantly scheming around the concept of that one moment when his captor would let their guard drop just enough for fangs, and fury to exact their recompense. 

Only the man who'd made a home out of bare bone,s and three square meals a day didn't have any discernible chinks in his armor. His heart wasn't soft, and trusting, and so simple to infest like Scott's had been. He wasn't prone to fits of high tension, and didn't bark when Theo tried so hard to bite. All his thwarted escape attempts, the insinuations of obedience which used to ring with such undeniable truth even those skeptical few bought into them, were met with mild bemusement. Like he was a plaything, an amusing aside in between the real politics of Beacon Hills hierarchy. 

Sixteen weeks after Theo stopped trying to count the hours between breakfast, lunch, dinner, and being hauled out into the light to earn himself another round of being beaten black and blue; incongruent noises began to pluck at the corners of his otherwise hazy consciousness. Wherever it was he'd been sequestered was like a void when it came to outside influences. No windows to reflect the dawning of a fresh day. Nothing to tie him back to the real world. It was the absolute opposite of the hell he'd been dredged up from both in substance and cacophony. Yet that consuming sensation of being apart from a reality where his broken family and former friends still existed was all too similar. 

Someone was shouting, their voice imbued with more emotion than Theo, lying upon a mattress which had seen better days, idling in the scent of old sweat and dried blood, understood that he was capable of feeling any more. Drained dry. Incumbent limbs allowed him the minor concession of levering himself up onto his elbows, finally reaching a round shouldered slump of a sitting position as the tail end of broken glass, and fractured boards resounded beyond the locked door which had kept him segregated. 

It was blinding when the final barrier came crashing back upon its hinges. The high, sickly tang of iron, urine and vomit which had become ingrained within his nostrils flared up momentarily. Someone had died today. Who was more deserving of that fate; the very question which swam to the surface of Theo's muddied consciousness, provoked a soft snort. In the moments which followed it was easier to just tune out the words of the one who knelt in front of him, gentle hands warmly carding through grime encrusted hair and over cheeks which couldn't bear the remnants of a multitude of old injuries – the only reminders of each one splattered across features which isolation hadn't entirely robbed of their handsome nature. If he remained an island unto himself, robotic, detached, only viewing the reality of something like freedom as some kind of sick, feverish day dream then it was an easier pill to swallow. 

Tolerable even, to only vaguely acknowledge the horror in his rescuer's painfully familiar eyes when he stilled their hand where it was making reverent, cautious work of trying to unlatch the comfortable weight and warmth of a strip of leather where it encircled his throat. They didn't understand, and he was too exhausted to try and make sense of it either. After all, who would believe it, Theo Raeken proud, stubborn, manipulative, dangerously so, finding solace in being shackled. He registered on the periphery that they were crying now, wordless in their bewilderment. Useless tears shed for someone who had no life beyond these four walls. Allowing himself to be held, to saturate in their unwarranted guilt was just as simple as it'd been to be dragged down by an undercurrent interspersed with things that rode that fine line between inexplicable pleasure and damning pain. And so he remained, trembling in spite of the last scraps of pride that stuck to ribs that were gluttonous for atonement. Listening quietly to the sound of someone mourning for him all over again.


End file.
